Cricket can be a cruel, unforgiving sport. Sometimes, the most promising careers are derailed through little or no fault of the player involved.
Talented cricketers can do everything right, tick all the boxes, but still find themselves twiddling their thumbs on the sidelines. In such cases, it is largely because they forgot to check the most important of all the boxes: gain favour.
Indian cricket is riddled with stories of players who should have swept away all before them, but were held back because they were not in the captain’s good books.
In some cases, this temporarily stalled their career and in others, it had more lasting effects. Here are five such cricketers.
1. MANOJ TIWARY
Dhoni seldom showed faith in Manoj Tiwary’s skills
Despite scoring his maiden ODI century against the West Indies in December 2011, Manoj Tiwary did not play in another one-day game for almost eight months. After playing two ODIs in Sri Lanka at the end of that spell out in the cold, he has only played four games in as many years since.
MS Dhoni’s preference for Rohit Sharma was evident. Tiwary was part of the squad for the tri-series in Australia with Sri Lanka, as well as the 2012 Asia Cup in Bangladesh, but did not play a single game. Rohit played in all but three games across both tournaments because his captain felt he was too talented a cricketer to be dropped. Eventually, Rohit zoomed ahead, became an opener and broke a world record.
One wonders what would have happened had Tiwary got that chance. The Bengal batsman has played only 12 ODIs and 3 T20Is to date.
2. NAYAN MONGIA
Nayan Mongia could only return to the team after Tendulkar stepped down
It seemed being out of favour with Sachin Tendulkar was something Nayan Mongia managed to develop on account of one specific incident. Tendulkar never forgave him for an errant shot against Pakistan at Chennai in 1999. Across Tendulkar’s two spells as captain, Mongia played 19 of his 44 Tests, but only two of them came in the second stint.
For the tour of Australia in 1999-2000, Tendulkar, backed by coach Kapil Dev, selected MSK Prasad over Mongia for the Test series. For the ODI matches that followed, Mumbai’s Sameer Dighe was picked after Prasad’s poor form. Mongia actually went to Australia when it looked like Prasad might not be fit, but was only greeted by an icy reception. It is no coincidence that Mongia’s re-entry came only after Tendulkar chose to step down as skipper.
3. VVS LAXMAN
VVS Laxman still regrets not getting to play a single World Cup
Although he played 60 of his 86 ODIs under Sourav Ganguly, at times it looked as though VVS Laxman had done something as heinous as poison the Ganguly family pet. The truth, thankfully, is somewhat tamer. Ganguly had taken a fancy to bits-and-pieces players like Dinesh Mongia and Sanjay Bangar, and Laxman was the most expendable member of the existing squad.
Laxman played no ODIs between January 2000 and March 2001. Besides that, his other major absence from the team came when he played just one ODI in the first ten months of 2003. This included an omission from the Indian squad that reached the 2003 World Cup final. Who made it to that squad instead? Mongia and Bangar.
4. MURALI KARTIK
Murali Kartik, perennially the third spinner in India
Murali Kartik fancied himself as quite the left-arm spinner for India, a possible replacement for the ageing Anil Kumble. Maybe even Harbhajan Singh’s spin twin, each taking turns at causing the ball to turn one way and then the other, bamboozling batsmen from all continents.
Except Sourav Ganugly wasn’t quite on the same page. With a flair for handling left-arm spin himself, Ganguly never quite grasped the hype around the Tamil Nadu spinner. Kartik’s time in Test cricket coincided with Ganguly’s spell as captain. Little wonder then that it was an India career that produced only 8 Tests and 37 ODIs. Only 15 of those ODIs came under Ganguly.
(Fun Fact: Post-retirement, Ganguly captained Murali Kartik once again while leading Kolkata and Pune in the IPL)
5. SOURAV GANGULY
‘How’s the back-lift skip?’
Yes, for this most combative of captains, it is true that the shoe was once on the other foot. Despite his triumphant return to the side during the 1996 tour of England, Ganguly’s place was not always 100% assured.
The trip to Toronto in September under Sachin Tendulkar’s stewardship saw Ganguly dropped in favour of Vinod Kambli for the third and fourth games of the series. On the tour to the West Indies the following year, Ganguly was again dropped for the final Test and the first ODI, leaving Kolkata a city fuming.
Ultimately, Ganguly’s claim to a place was cemented by his performance in 1997’s series in Toronto. Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad and Anil Kumble were unavailable and Ganguly collected 15 wickets in their absence as he ended up the highest wicket-taker and run-scorer in the aptly named Friendship Cup. Tendulkar could ignore him no more.
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